Further Out Than You Thought (15 page)

Below the center of the mirror, a single candle faltered: the Virgin of Guadalupe. The dark Virgin, the one Gwen had always felt most drawn to. It reminded her of her grandmother Carlotta, whose pendant she had, still, somewhere. When had she last seen it? She had found the pendant years ago in Carlotta's gold-leafed antique jewelry box. It was after her funeral and Gwen's mother and aunts were diving in, dividing her treasures—the diamond rings and bracelets and necklaces—among which the Guadalupe pendant on the thin silver chain had stood out. Its tarnished edges and its enamel face had spoken to Gwen of her grandmother's girlhood, of that time before she'd met the man who would be her husband, who'd buy her diamonds and dresses and escort her to charity balls, before she'd exchanged the name Carlotta for the anglicized Carla. Gwen had never seen her wear the Guadalupe pendant. With its red and green and gold, it was too bright. Too Mexican. Gwen had put it on then and there. For a long time after that, all during high school, she never took it off. And now she needed to find it. She wished it hung over her heart, instead of these fake pearls.

The Guadalupe candle was new. It would have to burn awhile before the image would really light up, like sun through stained glass. You could still see, over the rim of the candle's clear glass, the flame—the blue base, the yellow tip, and, between them, the pellucid window, oblong, like those windows in submarines, or in illustrations of submarines, the window from one world into another.

On the vanity, inside the ring of candles, Valiant's wigs framed their mannequin heads. The black rocker wig and the one with the straight bangs—the pageboy he wore when he wanted to look pretty. In a wooden box between them he kept his makeup. Black eyeliner and mascara, eye shadow and blush and translucent powder.

Waiting for the Count to emerge from his bedroom, where he was still engaged in who knew what preparations, Gwen took off her black silk robe and hung it over the vanity chair. Leo was downstairs asleep on the sofa, which meant this party would consist of just the two of them—Valiant and her. They hadn't seen each other naked before, but it seemed natural, a fitting progression of their friendship. In just her heels, she realized she felt clothed, her body a sort of rubbery costume she wore with confidence. She was a little prickly, the hair on her pussy, her legs, and her armpits just starting to poke its way out of her skin. It was a luxury, those days she didn't have to shave, when she could let her body do what it wanted—to bristle as if in defense, to grow its veil of hair. And, yes, there was the razor she still needed to buy.

At Valiant's bar on wheels—the low cart with booze and mixers and a full canister of ice that he called his
rolling bar
—she started to pour herself a vodka and tonic before she remembered. Her body—this suit she wore with such ease—was changing.

It was hard thinking of her body as a machine, busy all by itself. Busy making someone. Someone else. All she had to do was supply the right ingredients—to eat and drink the right things, pure things—avocados and oranges—to breathe pure air, to think pure thoughts. All she had to do was be healthy, good to herself.

She wasn't sure she knew how. And anyway, she'd not decided.

You get an abortion and it's over was what Tony had said.
It's over.
There was such finality to it. There would be no turning back from that. No erasure. When she was forty-five, and her clock with its nonrechargeable battery was nearing the end of its ticking, and the silence was looming, she wouldn't be able to return to this time. She wouldn't be able to choose again.

She left her glass on the bar, untouched, and sat at the vanity, Valiant's shrine to transformation. Above the mirror and to both sides hung his triptych self-portrait. He'd painted his body black and while the paint was wet pressed his flesh against the raw white canvases. To the right was his face in profile, his shoulder and arm, a few ribs. To the left was the canvas with his feet and legs. And in the middle, above Gwen, hung his thighs, his ass, and his hips, the form a dark, open hibiscus from which his cock emerged—the majestic stamen. He'd painted it, Leo had told her, before Gwen had met him, just after he'd tested positive. And she could see why. Here his full-sized body (his cock, she figured, had to be a bit larger than life) was cast in permanent shadow. A perfect negative of himself, the painting was the world without him in it. It was like those cartoons in which the character runs right through the locked door, leaving a hole in their shape punched out of the wood. The painting was an act of bravery—his way of looking things in the face, his refusal to hide.

Gwen dipped his powder brush in the jar of loose powder. It was the color of moonlight, of starlight. She dusted her forehead, the tip of her nose, her collarbones, her aching nipples, her belly with its slight swell. In the candlelight, she almost glowed. She was Tink, still, made of air and shimmer. As if she might lift right off the chair and float on out the window.

These Last Days
was playing on the fifties radio. It was Valiant's favorite show, to which he'd tune in religiously for his dose of weekly humor. Veronica Lueken, a white, middle-aged, self-proclaimed prophet from Bayside, New York, saw Mary appear on the fairgrounds near LaGuardia, while devotees flocked to hear her message. The show always started with Veronica's secretary, in her heavy New York accent, giving the update on Veronica's health. This week was no different. “Veronica has not been doing well. Her pancreas has been giving her problems, as well as the medication prescribed for her diverticulitis.” And then Veronica herself came on, overwhelmed by what she saw, her voice strangulated with zeal. “I, I can see Mary. It's Mary. She knows me. She's, she's wearing a blue robe and underneath is—ah, ah, ah—a flowing white vestment, and she has sandals on her feet. She sees all her children gathered here and she's happy, she's smiling, she's, she's, she's talking to me now. How lovely you all are, she says. Oh! And now, she's crying. It's the sinners, the homosexuals. They've brought this plague upon us. The AIDS. She says they must repent. She says—”

Valiant entered from the hallway, switched off the radio. “She says they must change their evil ways,” he said, imitating her fervent breathlessness. “I've heard this one,” he said in his own voice. “It was on a few weeks ago.”

“Why do you do that to yourself?”

“Come on, Gwen. It's hilarious.”

Ready, apparently, for the riot-night festivities, he stood behind her, wearing his aqua satin robe, its sash in a loose bow at the waist. He took a black scarf from where it hung on the mirror and tied it around her neck. The scarf was almost too tight. Cradling her jaw in one hand, he tilted her face up, toward the Christmas lights. He turned her face to one profile and then the other. Was she a model to him now? Or an old film actress? What part would he ask her to play?

She laughed her high-pitched, nervous laugh, but clamped her mouth shut as soon as she realized. She hated this titter and how it flew from her mouth before she could stop it. It was the same laugh that had come out the time her mother ran over her cat, Mouse, in the driveway. The cat was flapping and splashing in a puddle of its own blood and she, Gwen, was laughing this awful laugh. She'd just won a modeling contest, from a photo her mother had taken. She was going to be in
Teen
magazine, and they were on their way to tell her grandmother the news when they'd backed over the cat. Her mother's tears dripped from her chin, and all Gwen could do was laugh. They'd buried Mouse in the vegetable garden and grown carrots over him the next summer.

The room was too quiet. She could hear the clock on the wall ticking. The antique clock with the brass rim and the big numbers. It said a quarter to three.

“These cheekbones,” Valiant said and sighed. “You should have been a movie star, darling.”

“You think?”

He turned her face to the mirror. “I
know.
” Valiant ran his fingers through her hair, taking his time, unknotting strands. He'd never done this before, and she found herself holding her breath. “You know,” he said, looking at her mirror-world eyes, holding them with his. “When I met you, I hated you immediately.” He tugged at a knot in her hair until it gave.

Gwen winced. “I know,” she said, “I—” And she wasn't sure how to finish her sentence. She'd known he was jealous, but that was then. They'd been friends for years.

“All this blond hair, how in love with you he was. I thought you'd take him away.”

“I wouldn't have dreamed of it.”

“No, I know that now. And here you are. One of my very, very best friends,” he said, pulling through another knot. “I was scared of nothing.” He lifted her hair, took the whole of it in his hand and drew it back, tight.

Gwen looked at her face in the mirror and saw—not herself—but Carlotta. (She refused to think of her as Carla.) Yes, it was her grandmother, young, in her red dress with the ruffles along the hem, castanets in her hands. Staring back at her, she saw Carlotta's eyes, their shock of green. This was the Carlotta who would eat a man alive. She recognized her fire—destruction, creation. A world of possibility.

She knew what she'd do. She'd take the risk. After all, the Count was someone she could talk to. He was her friend. She could confide in him.

“I want to tell you something,” she said. “You have to promise me you won't tell anyone.”

“Oooh. A secret. I promise,
if
. . . if you promise me you'll never leave me. What would I do without you and Leo?” he said, smiling a hopeful smile and twisting her hair until she felt her roots tug on her scalp.

What
would
he do? It was a good question. If she kept the baby and she stayed with Leo, that would mean they'd leave him. Because she wouldn't raise a child in Los Angeles. She wouldn't.

“What is it?” he said. “You're so serious.”

“Oh.” She was stalling, losing her gumption, thinking of something else she could say. “In the mirror. Have you ever thought about it? How you can't see yourself, ever, the way others see you? It's opposite, in the mirror. It's all reversed.”

“You've been smoking, haven't you, kid.” With a laugh, he let her hair go, so that it hung bedroom-messy over one of her eyes. “Look at you. A young Ann-Margret—before the car crash and the reconstructive surgery. Ann-Margret in
Kitten with a Whip.
Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Just you.”

“Oh, I've been saving something,” he said. He put an LP on the turntable and crooned along with Sinatra.
Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars.
“One moment, dear,” he said. “I'll be back.”

Gwen stayed in the chair, looking at herself. She loosened the scarf, took the pageboy wig from its mannequin head and put it on. She tucked her own blond hair up under the wig's mesh cap until she was all brunette. Now she resembled her mother. Her image flickered in the flickering room. Here and gone.

It was déjà vu, a dream she was just remembering. On the bed at dusk, she had closed her eyes. She'd slept deep and long and now the dream she'd had was coming back to her in detail.

She is huge, her belly and her breasts, seven months pregnant at least, and onstage as if by some mistake, unshaven, unprepared. Teetering on her heels, she tries to spin. The men stare at her in horror. They had not come to see this monster of a woman. Her mother sits among them. And then she stands up, a pistol in her hand. She aims the gun at Gwen's womb, fires and misses. And Gwen, in all her bloated glory, flies through an open window. And she is safe. With the baby inside her—the girl—she flies over hills, and can see the moon, and stars. And then the scene shifts.

Her mother is a model, on a sofa beside another model, in a green room, backstage, behind the runway, sipping tea, laughing and holding the woman's hands. It is her mother before she was a mother, her hair spilling like dark wine.

Seeing her like that, in the dream, Gwen is lit. She is filled. Her heart is a tended hearth.

And now, at the vanity, Gwen took from Valiant's wooden box a container of eye shadow. Shades of shimmering blue. She touched her finger to the lightest of the blues and ran it over her upper eyelid, just under her brow. Right, then left. And the darker blue lower, above her lashes. Like the wings of a butterfly. One of Nabokov's blues.

Her mother's eyelids are gold-white in the dream. Opalescent. Her eyelids glint, as if reflecting some other world in which the colors have a smell, a taste. Semen and citrus blossom, creosote after a summer rain.

“Angel dust,” her mother says of her glimmering eyelids. “You want some?”

“I'm all right. I'm doing fine,” Gwen says, and as she speaks the words, she knows it is a lie.

“No,” her mother says, looking through her. “You need this.” She flutters her lashes, and the angel dust fills the air with glints of light that settle in Gwen's open eyes. The world is changed. The world is made of petals. Of pastel-colored petals. Everything. The coffee table, the sofa, the teacups and the saucers. Her mother and her mother's friends, the chandeliers and the walls. And when Gwen sees her own reflection in the dream she is made of petals, too—green and yellow and blue and pink—as if she were looking through the facets of a crystal.

The world is magic. The world is just-born and full-blown—honeysuckle, sunflowers, roses and bees. And her mother takes her in her arms and they waltz. She kisses Gwen—on her eyelids, on her nose—the way she did when Gwen was little. Time is gone. It is a watchful silence, an iridescence, like a soap bubble in sunlight, a soap bubble they are inside, floating and waltzing, and when Gwen looks at her mother again she is Brett.

They stop dancing and the room swirls around them. Brett leans close. Their lips touch and open, and their tongues are fruit flesh, peeled apricots and peaches. Plums.